Zhu Yun left, and the Tengshe Cave Master considered abandoning his report and fleeing. However, by the time he could make a move, the door had been sealed shut. Amidst countless resentful glances, the Tengshe Cave Master did his best to remain calm. He took a deep breath and flew over to the monitor. "Su'er is very skilled at exploiting loopholes, but that's only as a player. As a host, this ability is of limited use."
This sentence received a lot of response from the audience.
The display flickered briefly.
Seeing that there might be room for a turnaround, the Lord of Tengshe Cave felt a little relieved.
"Improving personal qualities is particularly important," a clear voice said. "Only by putting yourself in the shoes of the players can you understand what they are thinking and improve your professional skills."
who?
The Tengshe Cave Master's sharp gaze swept across the room, finally stopping at Mr. Rose's shoulder. He looked at the clay figurine and said in a rather unfriendly tone, "How can you have the right to speak here?"
Upon hearing this, Mr. Yue raised his eyes and sneered, "As a host, you're afraid of a player. Are you a loser?"
"…"
Being confronted head-on, the Lord of Tengshe Cave was so angry that the frequency of flapping his wings became incorrect.
Gentleman Rose stood up and said, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If you can't repay Su Er, then shut up."
Outside Nongxu, Mr. Rose stopped. Although he didn't say anything, the little clay figurine could sense the danger. If he couldn't come up with a reasonable explanation, his life would be in danger.
The first generation of clay figures was very reasonable: "To ensure Su'er's safety and the fairness of the dungeon, the game will definitely seal the host's power, and we will be your help. Besides, there will be rewards for the final victory. Why not reap the benefits while others suffer?"
The last clay figure added: "Sul is not invincible. The situation may turn around later. In any case, this wave is not a loss."
Future Ghost King: "My father, Su Er, everyone present..."
Before he could say anything more unfavorable, the first generation clay man blocked his mouth.
It makes sense. Gentleman Rose lowered his head in thought, his eyes unpredictable.
·
"The holidays are finally here."
Suer dragged his suitcase out of the school gate and sighed.
Unlike high school, his actual expectations for university vacations were much lower. After all, he had so much freedom while on campus. The only downside was that a serial killer had been reported nearby in the first half of the year. To prevent this tragedy, the school was closed for almost half the semester. Even if students lived in the same city, they couldn't report to school and had to live on campus.
It's really tragic that he and Ji Heng's relationship has ended up like this, and they can only rely on video calls.
At this moment, Ji Heng was waiting at the school gate. He walked quickly over to help carry the luggage. Two good-looking people standing together inevitably attracted some attention, but Suer ignored it and sat directly in the passenger seat.
Ji Heng got into the car a step later and took out several schedules, which listed different kinds of food and restaurant environments, as well as the option of cooking at home. He also listed in detail the dishes he was good at, which was extremely friendly to those with decision-making difficulties.
"Look, what do you want to eat?"
Su Er looked at his watch and said in a good mood: "I will make good use of this holiday to go out for a trip."
Ji Heng nodded: "Okay."
Several place names popped into Suer's mind. He was about to search online for travel guides when a small card appeared out of nowhere in the car, floated in mid-air, and landed on his lap. He opened it. At the top was a line of small text: "Host Seven-Day Tour," and below it was a form to fill in basic information.
"It's haunting." He shook his head.
Ji Heng also saw the note and asked, "Are there any other explanations?"
Soul flipped through it and finally found the remaining text description at the back: "The game promises to guarantee my life safety. The reward for the temporary host is one hundred..."
"One hundred what?"
Su Er's expression remained unchanged. "That's not important. The host is over. The game will deal with the nearby serial killer."
Ji Heng's focus was still on the former, and he leaned over to catch a glimpse of the second half of what he hadn't finished saying—
One hundred large-scale wild sex photos of Ji Heng in the game.
"…"
Unless there are ghosts in the settings, the game will automatically remove the monitoring when the player takes a shower or goes to the toilet. However, there are special cases, such as swimming or temporarily changing clothes.
It is easy for the game to call up old records and take a few screenshots.
Soul began filling out the form.
Ji Heng asked quietly, "Are you going?"
Without even looking up, Su Er said, "This murderer is extremely cunning. The police are also having a headache after he hid himself. In order to ensure public order and a healthy environment for students..."
Ji Heng interrupted: "Isn't it for the photos?"
Su Er shook his head, frowned and asked: "Why do you think so?"
Ji Heng believed it, and then was caught off guard to see a few more lines of words on the reward section of the card.
[Two hundred.]
[One hundred and five.]
[One hundred and eighty, no less!]
…
Clearly someone is trying to bargain with the game through the medium of cards.
"Oh."
A dull voice reached his ears, and Su Er echoed it with a false laugh: "It's all a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding."
Whether it was a real misunderstanding or a false misunderstanding, the host did it in the end.
Sur was responsible for participating in part of the task arrangement. The game temporarily selected a copy world and gave the world outline in advance.
[Please read carefully. There are 3 hours, 2 minutes and 20 seconds left before the dungeon opens.]
The game prompt ended, and Soul was alone in a deserted area. The ability he'd mastered in high school to read quickly was still there. In just half the time, he'd even memorized the entire game content.
He could only wander around in the same place to kill time for the rest of the time. Just when he was getting bored, the countdown sound came -
[Three...two...one, teleportation is about to begin.]
Sur appeared at the mountain pass. The road led to a cemetery. The entire mountain behind it was buried with at least a thousand bodies.
As the host, he was the first to arrive. Five minutes later, the players of this game appeared one by one. They were all familiar faces, except for the little girl who liked to carry a lantern.
"The Minor Host Protection Act..." As if knowing what Su Er was thinking, Mr. Shuhai still kept reading and explained, "Feng Wu will not be attending this event."
Fengwu?
Su Er raised an eyebrow. The naughty kid's name was quite particular. Then he looked at the man standing at the far corner and asked curiously, "Who are you?"
Because he was wearing a hat and couldn't see his face clearly, Suer bent down slightly to see part of his outline. It seemed to be the mysterious man who was sending him and Ji Heng to the last copy.
Princess Camellia said indifferently, "He was the host of that show. It was just a trick."
Su Er still didn't quite understand.
The smiling businessman revealed the secret, slowly uttering two words: "Statue."
"…"
Skipping this embarrassing topic, Soul glanced at their name tags.
Even in a large dungeon, there are only a dozen or so players at most, so the game does not arrange too many hosts to enter. All the players selected are those who have hosted dungeons for Sur, under the pretext of key training.
The hosts' powers were temporarily sealed, and the power they could now wield was meticulously calculated. Besides their names, their badges displayed their strength and spirit points, excluding their charm. Each host's values were identical, drawn from the average of all current players.
In other words, in the dungeon, the power that everyone can use is basically the same.
If there is an exception, it is that each host can bring three props when entering the dungeon, and the game will appropriately reduce the prop capacity to the range that the dungeon can bear.
Then there's Rose Gentleman, whose clay figurine wasn't confiscated. Because the game doesn't clearly define the existence of the clay figurine, it's more like a product of the Painted Skin Ghost's split, with limited abilities, making it difficult to determine whether it's an independent entity.
"Hello everyone," Su Zhanzhan smiled professionally after taking in their situation. "I am the top scorer in the college entrance examination for this host."
"…"
In the silence, the smiling businessman couldn't help but question: "You, the top scorer in the college entrance examination?"
Although Suer was good at business, he was sure that the other party was not good at math.
"It's just a name," Su Er's expression turned cold. "Who says it has to be true?"
Can't you just satisfy your craving for something?
The smiling businessman sighed, "Let's talk about the clearance mission."
Sometimes you need to be thick-skinned to do business, but compared to Suer, he felt inferior to him in this regard.
"Born between heaven and earth, buried between heaven and earth, burial has a very long history. In recent years, cremation has gradually become more popular. It has many advantages, such as saving land resources, facilitating worship, and being environmentally friendly. However, there is one thing..."
Su Er grasped the host's essence, his lips curled up in an eerie arc. "Some things buried in the ground have a chance to rise again. Please work together to help a sleeper named 'Zhao Shinan' close his eyes within seven days. He was buried with his eyes open, and he hasn't had a good night's sleep in hundreds of years."
The wind in the mountains was cold and strong, and combined with this sentence, it created a terrifying atmosphere.
"It's important to point out that death in a dungeon won't result in actual death, but the loser will experience the pain of death firsthand."
Disdainful voices came from the hosts, who were now the players. It was obvious that they didn't care about this little bit of pain at all.
Soul seemed to have anticipated this and added gently, "Later, your performances will be compiled into teaching materials and broadcast to other hosts so they can learn from them. If you die miserably, you'll be looked down upon."
The Tengshe Cave Master instinctively wanted to flap his wings, but unfortunately, he was in human form. This was part of the game's principle of fairness, and participation required physical transformation. Unable to express his anger with his body, he could only vent his feelings verbally: "It must have been your idea, you bastard!"
Su Er smiled slightly, then replied calmly: "This is really the arrangement of the game. The idea of this bastard is still to come."
"…"
"The winner's reward is three thousand strands of Yin Qi and one exchange ticket."
Tengshe Cave Master: "Exchange voucher?"
Suer: "If you don't want to host a certain instance, you can use the exchange ticket to change it."
In the past, no one would care about exchange coupons, but after experiencing Sur, they found that such things were necessary just in case.
Sur: "It's taboo to shout in front of the grave. To facilitate communication, a communicator has been installed."
"Sorry, the number you dialed is out of service..."
As he was speaking, intermittent voices were heard.
There is not just one such sound, but layers of it interwoven together.
As one thing grew stronger, the other weakened. To avoid any accidents, the game temporarily raised Sur's physical attributes. His extraordinary five senses quickly allowed him to lock onto several sound sources. The callers were Mr. Dongfeng, Mr. Pu Liu, and the fortune teller, and they called the same number.
"It's useless." Soul smiled and said, "This is a special communicator, only usable between players. But I'm glad you thought of calling the police. Especially the Divine Calculator, giving up metaphysics and actively seeking outside help is a big step forward."
"…"
The other hosts immediately looked at the three people with strange eyes. How did they come up with the idea of calling the police, an anti-ghost behavior?
Can we still practice "feudal superstition" properly?
Sur said nothing more and clapped his hands, "If there are no other questions, I declare the game officially open."
The mountain road is rugged and difficult to walk on.
The ability to transfer space has been sealed, and the host who used to have great powers can now only rely on physical strength to slowly climb up.
The Teng Snake Cave Master looked at Su Er with great displeasure: "Could you please stop hanging around in front?"
Su Er actually accepted his advice humbly and walked in the shade instead.
"There's no need for verbal arguments," said Mr. Shuhai, who had rarely spoken since entering. "Although we've lost our strength, we can unite and complete the task within a day by using our tools."
This statement is no exaggeration. Compared to ordinary players, hosts have a natural advantage: they are familiar with the game's various routines. To put it bluntly, many dungeons are not difficult. The real reason for the low completion rate is mutual suspicion and competition among players... and even exploiting loopholes in the rules to fight each other.
As veterans, sowing discord doesn't work for them.
There was an old lady standing at the entrance of the cemetery. Under normal circumstances, the host would have crushed such a lonely ghost to death with just one finger, but now he had to stop.
As a newly opened copy, the ghosts inside don't recognize the host at all, let alone respect him.
The old woman's face was devoid of flesh, only a piece of skin clung to it loosely. She banged the ground twice with her cane: "The world of the dead has no room for lies. Anyone who wishes to enter must have a true heart."
Although he was old, his eyes revealed a great deal of shrewdness: "You need to send two people to answer my questions first. Remember, they must be sincere."
The most knowledgeable person here was Mr. Shuhai, but the old woman's emphasis on sincerity suggested that the more she knew, the more disadvantageous it might be. After weighing the pros and cons, the Tengshe Cave Master left first, followed by Mr. Puliu.
"Have you thought it through?" The old lady laughed strangely.
The Lord of Tengshe Cave was naturally not frightened by her and nodded calmly.
At this moment, the old lady's walking stick suddenly grew like a sapling, growing taller and splitting into separate branches on both sides. A silver thread like spider silk fell from one of the branches and wrapped around Mr. Pu Liu's wrist just below.
From a distance, the cane transformed into something resembling a scale, except that an axe hung from one end, not a weight. A mysterious force shifted the Teng Snake Cave Master's position, and he now stood on the other end of the scale.
The old lady said: "You two are standing under the 'Scales of Truth'. One of you has to answer the question. If you tell even a single lie, the axe on the other end will fall."
In other words, if Mr. Pu Liu lies, the Lord of Tengshe Cave will be killed by the axe falling from mid-air.
A thick stack of small cards appeared in the old lady's hand: "What's your name?"
Mr. Pu Liu looked at the stack of small cards and had a bad feeling in his heart, but he still answered truthfully.
The old lady nodded and pulled out only one of the cards, putting the others back. "Three questions left...Have you ever been persecuted by Sur?"
Mr. Pu Liu instantly understood the real intention of this game: to alienate the relationship between the hosts.
It is not difficult to guess who designed such a vicious link.
Glancing at the smiling Su Er not far away, Mr. Pu Liu said coldly, "No."
The remaining hosts present, except for the Green Lotus Sage, immediately felt a subtle imbalance in their mentality... There was actually a traitor among them who had not been abused!
The old lady looked at Libra and licked her dry lips. "Very good. I like honest children."
Then he asked, "Excuse me, are you privately following Su's persecution of the host?"
Mr. Pu Liu's eyelids twitched, and finally he nodded slowly.
The old lady said excitedly, "One last question! Whenever you hear someone suffer misfortune, do you light up with joy, feel elated, and think that life is truly wonderful? And you are one of those lucky ones!"
Mr. Pu Liu moved his lips but no sound came out.
The axe on the other side of the scale seems to be about to fall.
"Ten seconds left. Any time you exceed the limit will be counted as a failure."
Mr. Pu Liu closed his eyes. There was no point in lying. Even if he denied it now, the axe would fall and that would be enough to reveal the truth. He gritted his teeth and said, "Yes."
"Beast!" The Tengshe Cave Master, who had been reported twice, cursed angrily.
The others also looked at Mr. Pu Liu with cold eyes.
It was Suer who was trying to sow discord. Mr. Pu Liu knew it, and they certainly understood it too, but emotional anger sometimes could not be completely restrained by reason.
"Great." The loyal tomb-keeper, who had also suffered persecution for reporting the crime, sneered, "So you still have this kind of interest in life."
The silver thread on his wrist was taken back, and Mr. Pu Liu returned to the team with a gloomy face.
The old lady ignored their quarrel and said, "Next group."
The fortune teller frowned: "Does everyone need to be tested?"
The old lady said mysteriously, "The truth is cruel and sometimes disgusting. Seeing it too much makes me uncomfortable! Another group, we'll let you in once you pass."
Recalling her previous actions, she should have found the card that the host needed to answer the question by name, and the person who asked the question was definitely Suer.
But I can't lie about the name, so I can only follow the other party's routine.
This time, no host stepped forward. God knows what kind of questions they need to answer. Offending people is the least of their worries.
Su Er, who had been quietly standing in the shadows, watched the fun without a care in the world and said kindly, "Don't be afraid. Aren't we all good colleagues on a normal day?"
"…"